


Kageyama & Hinata & It

by oh_god_bees



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Disability, Epilepsy, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hiding Medical Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_god_bees/pseuds/oh_god_bees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama struggles to come to terms with a recent diagnosis and a new-found crush on his best friend. Hinata just wants to help.</p>
<p>"There’s so much he wants to tell Hinata but so little he knows himself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kageyama & Hinata & It

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a repost of something I posted in late December and removed in March. There were a few tweaks that I needed to make here and there. Thank you for all the support on the first go-around, and I hope to see just as much kindness here!

They sit on the curb as the sun dies in front of them, quiet and serene. Kageyama rests his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He watches the setting sun tiredly, feeling weak from volleyball practice, the events of the past few days, and knowing that he has to break the news to his best friend eventually. Hinata is sitting beside him now, arms stretched out behind him, palms flat against the concrete. He tilts his head back, gripping a coke bottle with his teeth to catch the last drops. It’s pointless for Kageyama to look over since he knows Hinata has a grin on his face; he feels something like guilt before he speaks: “I think I’m taking a break from volleyball for a little while.”

“What?” Hinata lets the bottle drop and hit the road with an empty plastic clatter. ‘It’s our third year. You’re the _co-captain_ , dumbass.” The rest goes unspoken. It’s no secret that Kageyama has grown into the best setter in the prefecture, and with more training in the coming season he could easily become the best nationally. He’s not the ace, but never mind that, because without Kageyama, Karasuno could fall.

“I won’t even be gone that long,” Kageyama says, trying to shrug the news off. “My parents have been acting really weird lately. It isn’t a big deal.” He lets his words fill the air, fat and heavy. Of course it’s a big deal. Of course something is wrong.

There’s so much he wants to tell Hinata but so little he knows himself.

* * *

The problem is that he remembers so little from his _hospital visit_ , let alone the moments leading up to and directly after what put him there. He had asked his mother to get him some Oreos from the cabinet while he poured himself a glass of milk. That was the last time he remembers feeling normal—when he set the milk down on the table and pulled a dining room chair out so he could sit. An Oreo was perched on his lips, barely held in place by his front teeth. It was then that he felt his head buzz, a million bees flying in one ear and out the other. His mouth no longer tasted like light sugar but of something coppery and hot.

And the world went black for just a second.

When he woke up, he was lying supine on the kitchen tile, watching EMTs fill the room, preparing to take him to the hospital. His mother clasped his hand and hold him that it was going to be all right, that he was okay. He couldn’t find his father anywhere right then but he was at the hospital hours later, wringing his hands anxiously. He was the one who admonished Kageyama for bothering the nurse with too many questions that she couldn’t answer. That was fair, though, Kageyama thought, since the nurse had asked him too many questions _he_ couldn’t answer.

What he remembers best is how his tongue had hurt where he bit it in his fall—in his fall—didn’t the doctor say it was common with this kind of thing even without falling?—and how tiredness filled him up and settled in his bones.

The doctor spoke to Kageyama’s parents in hushed whispers while their son tried to sleep; he wasn’t invited into the conversation and he didn’t want anybody to know he was listening to them. It didn’t matter anyway since he was barely awake, but he stored new words in his mind so he could ask somebody about them when he woke up: EEG, MRI, tonic-clonic, post-ictal. They filled him up like dark clouds and bustled at the inside walls of his skull until he fell asleep.

“You’re sure that leaving is temporary?” Hinata asks now, breaking Kageyama’s spell. “Can we still be friends?”

“Yes,” Kageyama replies a little too quickly. “Yes to both.” 

* * *

 Just after the sun finishes setting, they walk home like they always do, side by side. Hinata pulls his bike at his left so it doesn’t run over Kageyama’s feet, and when he talks he skirts around the topic of volleyball but instead tries to find common ground elsewhere. Like always, Hinata does most of the talking and Kageyama counts himself lucky to be able to walk alongside Hinata and listen. It’s dark all around them now but where Hinata stands there is soft golden light and a warm, homely feeling. Hinata laughs at a memory of his younger sister and Kageyama is hardly paying attention to the words at that point: he’s busy worrying about the fork in the road just up ahead. If something went wrong between the fork in the road and Kageyama’s house, he would never hear the end of it. Then again, that requires that he makes it though an episode.

They reach the fork too quickly for Kageyama’s comfort and he asks Hinata if he would mind walking him home, covering the request up with half-truth “my mother all of a sudden doesn’t want me going places by myself.” Hinata agrees without question, smiling as he does so.

Now they walk in silence since Hinata has run out of conversation topics and Kageyama is too afraid to speak. He knows what’s waiting for him at home so he savors these last few moments with his friend. When they get to the end of the driveway, Hinata has an uncharacteristically wide and smug grin on his face, like a painter miscalculated how long he needed to pull his brush along the canvas.

“Would your mother be more comfortable if I walked you to the door, Kageyama-kun?”

“Shut up, dumbass,” Kageyama says as he punches Hinata’s arm. “I think I can walk myself.” He trudges up the long driveway. Once he gets to the front door, he turns around and raises a hand in goodbye but Kageyama doesn’t go inside until he’s sure Hinata has pulled away on his bike.

He takes his shoes off right as soon as he crosses the threshold, setting them down beside the door next to his mother’s. Kageyama isn’t sure where she is so he calls out to let her know that he’s all right “Okaasan, I’m here! Hinata helped me home!”

“Was everything okay?” She asks the question as she pokes her head from the kitchen doorway. “Did anybody ask why you weren’t in school last week?”

“My day was fine. Hinata asked me what was wrong, but I just told him I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t have to lie.” Her only reply is a quick, proud nod before ducking back into the kitchen to finish dinner. Kageyama shuffles down the hall to his bedroom where he sets his schoolbag on the floor, yawning. Soon his father will be home, tired after a long day of work, and they would sit around the dinner table and talk of what is to come: preliminary EEGs and MRIs, anticonvulsant prescriptions. Everything feels fuzzy and when Kageyama lays down on his bed all that’s left in him are the words: _we talked to him before letting him rest and he told us about some things that make us thing this is only an evolution of a problem that was already there._

* * *

Two weeks later he’s lying on a hard cot in the neurologist’s office. It’s raised about three feet off the ground so a nurse can sit comfortably on a stool as she idly attaches electrodes to Kageyama’s head with petroleum jelly. Staring up at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights burn his eyes as the nurse explains to both Kageyama and his mother some of the more notable electrodes like the ones at his temples and behind his ears. He isn’t really sure of what to do with his hands; at first he has them folded over his stomach but later they rest at his sides to pick at the edges of the wax paper covering the cot. His mother sees this and slaps his hand, forcing him to pay more attention to the way the petroleum jelly feels cool and sticky against his skin and in his hair.

“And this one goes over your heart,” the nurse says. Kageyama adjusts his shirt so she can place it on his chest more easily. It’s the only wire with a silver plastic coating, all the others are vibrant pinks and greens and yellows that juxtapose the white pillow beneath Kageyama’s head. The heart monitor is held in place not with petroleum jelly but with a translucent sticker that reminds Kageyama of a Band-Aid. The nurse takes a piece of thin tape to pull all the wires together and hold them in one thick bunch while she wraps Kageyama’s head in gauze— _to keep the electrodes in place while you sleep_ , she says.

After that he’s allowed to get up and the nurse walks him down the hospital hallway. Kageyama catches a glimpse of himself in a piece of one-way glass and he thinks he looks something like a sock monkey. The nurse pulls him into a room with another bed in it; this one is fluffier than the cot before but there’s no mistaking the typical hospital railing at the sides. There’s a recording room off to the side with a wide doorway so both the nurse and Kageyama’s mother can look through to see him while he sleeps during the test. While she hooks him up to the monitor, the nurse tells Kageyama to make himself comfortable.

“But not _too_ comfortable,” she warns. “We have two quick exercises for you first, okay?” Kageyama only hums his acknowledgement and tries to lay down without thinking about how tired he is—part of the rules said that he couldn’t get any sleep the night before the EEG. To keep himself from drifting off early, Kageyama pinches his arm. In the background, the nurse fiddles with wires and switches on a big machine and Kageyama notices her talking to herself quietly as she works, but the words are so soft he can’t really make out what she’s saying.

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and when he pulls them away to look back at the ceiling he can see little blue and orange spots on the white tiles. The nurse reaches over the bed to lower a long arm with a lamp at the end. It hovers a little over Kageyama’s face—the spots in his vision make it hard to tell but he thinks it’s about a foot away from the tip of his nose. He notices that it’s about the same size as a volleyball; he moves his hands up like he’s about to toss but it’s only in his mind and instead he folds his hands over his stomach like before. _It’s useless to think about playing volleyball when you know you can’t._

The nurse flicks the overhead lights off and begins to explain the first part of the test. All it’s for is to see if Kageyama is photosensitive. His brain will react negatively to the lamp if he is. The nurse tells him to close his eyes during the test to keep them from hurting, and he does as he’s told because his mother will be upset if he doesn’t. He knows that it matters little whether or not your eyes are closed when you’re tonic-clonicing all over the bed but to say that to his mother’s face would be hurtful.

The test starts slowly but picks up speed over time. Kageyama breathes in through his nose and out again in time with the light but as it begins to strobe faster and faster he resumes normal breathing to keep from hyperventilating. He doesn’t feel the aura (ringing ears, a metallic mouth) but he doesn’t feel quite right either: the strobe hurts his head and he can’t tell whether that has to do with the wiring of his brain or his face’s proximity to the bright yellow light. By the time it’s over he can feel a sharp pain at his temples.

When the nurse gets up from the recording machine to switch the overhead lights on and move the lamp’s arm back, Kageyama blinks hard and fast. He moves to press his hands to his temples like he usually does when he gets a headache but he briefly forgets the gauze wrapped layer upon layer on his head that holds the electrodes in place. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut and scrunches his eyebrows together but in the end that just doesn’t work as well.

The nurse is already in the throes of describing the next part of the test “Now, we’re just going to have you blow on this pinwheel for a minute. Keep it spinning, okay? She’s holding it close to Kageyama’s face, looking at her watch to know when to stop the timer. “Go.”

He starts off quickly—surely a minute isn’t all that long? Surely he can get through the minute spinning the pinwheel so fast that its colors bleed together and shine like stars under the fluorescents. In about twenty-five seconds Kageyama grows dizzy, and, if possible, more tired than before. _This is what it feels like after running a marathon,_ he thinks _no, ten marathons._ Soon his expert breathing is more puffing than anything and he wonders if this would be any easier if he had kept exercising. Both women encourage Kageyama to finish the minute—there’s fifteen seconds and as he breathes and breathes the number decreases to ten and two and zero.

Once the minute is up and the nurse has smiled her approval, Kageyama closes his eyes. She tells him that he can finally sleep and he swears that he’s out before the overhead lights turn off.

* * *

 It’s all about medication and avoidance. It’s two daily doses of Trileptal—ten milliliters in the morning and fourteen at night. It’s going to bed before it gets too late, abstaining from video games and from television. It’s new diets and mothers with worrying eyebrows and fathers who are around just often enough to care but not enough to know exactly what’s happening.

His father wasn’t even there when they reviewed the results from the EEG, and frankly Kageyama himself was there in body but not in mind. The paper charting his brainwaves was long and confusing even after the neurologist explained what each part meant. _It’s been tonic-clonic when he’s awake, you know, but here it just looks tonic. At our last appointment, he described having something similar to an absence_ —the words swim in Kageyama’s mind, treading deep open water.

An MRI is scheduled for some time soon—the neurologist had said at the last appointment that it never hurts to check for weak spots, especially over the left ear where all the activity starts. Kageyama has stopped paying attention to the dates but he allows his mother to ferry him from appointment to appointment. She seems constantly nervous in the places she used to be beautiful, in her watery blue eyes and long hair that is now greying around her ears. There’s a knot in her throat that doesn’t come undone. Kageyama has seen and heard her try to pull it apart but her voice is still strained.

He knows he’s missing school.

On the rare occasions he can attend, Hinata is always asking where he’s been. Lying comes easily, almost like breathing. It goes in and out, in and out: Kageyama lies like he breathes, quietly so that nobody notices, slowly and evenly. If he lied too fast, somebody would notice. If he lied too loudly, somebody would notice. He banks on the fact that nobody bothers to catch him in his lies because they’re so caught up in their own little white ones. Kageyama learns to breathe in a tempo as he’s lying: a truth, a lie, and once over for good measure.

They still walk home as they always have and although Kageyama knows something is wrong with Hinata he says nothing about it. If his mood has anything to do with volleyball, they’ll be overstepping their bounds. It’s been nearly two months since they last broached the subject and Kageyama isn’t about to let it come up in conversation now.

“Hey—has everything been okay with you?” Hinata asks suddenly. “You’ve quit volleyball, you’ve been missing school. I saw your mom the other day.”

“Dumbass, don’t worry about me.”

“No, let me talk,” Hinata is whining now “because I _am_ worried, Kageyama. I wish you would just tell me what’s going on.”

“Yeah? I wish you would just leave me alone about this! I’ve told you I’m fine, and you just keep going on and on. You know what, Hinata? I’ll just walk home alone today, okay?” Kageyama feels his face grow hot. He doesn’t need Hinata’s pity; pity is only an insult. “I’m getting a headache, you know? You’re giving me a headache, Hinata. I don’t need somebody talking to me and,” he lets the sentence stop there. And what? Fill the air with something that isn’t about a doctor’s appointment? Let him live a normal life, even if it’s just for a little while? “Never mind. Let’s just get home. My mom would be upset if I showed up without you behind me.”

“What about your headache?”

“It’s not quite bad enough to worry about yet.” Kageyama lowers his voice for the next part: “I’ll take something for it when I get home, if it makes you happy.”

* * *

 He sits in the waiting room at pediatrics since he’s still only 17. The walls are pastel yellow—a train table takes up most of the center of the room—a cartoon plays on a TV in the corner. Kageyama looks around at all the little kids and he wonders if any of them are there for the same reason that he is. He hopes not. Oh god, he hopes not.

“Kageyama Tobio?” A nurse pokes his head out from behind the heavy wooden door. Kageyama’s mother squeezes her son’s arm and they stand up together. It’s a short walk down the hall to an exam room. The nurse checks his vitals, clucking and checking boxes on his clipboard. A few minutes later he sends in a phlebotomist, and Kageyama grimaces as his blood is drawn. After his arm is bandaged, he’s taken to the room where he is to have the MRI.

An MRI isn’t as unpleasant as an EEG, but it’s fun by no means. Kageyama thinks it’s not dissimilar to being inside a giant oven. The machine is loud and a little bit hot and he has to lay perfectly still for forty-five minutes while it works and does. He tries to sleep at first but decides that doing so is beside the point and he soon begins to think about what Hinata is doing now—probably laughing at something. Helping old ladies cross the street. Volunteering at an animal shelter. Certainly not laying in an oven, slow-cooking while the machine takes pictures of his brain.

He allows himself to think about Hinata for a little while, about his wide eyes and Technicolor hair. Hinata is a piece of animation, bouncing and laughing and taking up millions of frames in full, beautiful detail. There is so much good and splendor in him but also a smart-ass streak that runs a mile wide. Kageyama knows he would cross that streak ten times over if it meant getting to see even a little bit of that good.

If he did, would Hinata notice?

The MRI machine whirs around Kageyama loudly, perpetually, but he soon stops focusing on the machine and loses himself in dreams of Hinata’s smile.

* * *

 He learns to move through the house in silence since too much noise worries his mother, puts her on edge like something is wrong. Through the quiet Kageyama knows when a fuss is made and anymore one almost always is. His mother. His father. Unforgiving murmurs.

When he exits his bedroom, he does so quietly, and he shuffles along the edges of the hallway so the floorboards don’t creak underfoot. Kageyama comes into the kitchen without anybody noticing, taking the Trileptal from the medicine cabinet and drawing the milky liquid into a syringe without thought or sound. It isn’t until after shooting the medicine into his mouth that there’s any noise louder than a whisper in the whole house.

He hears his mother, harsh, _Hush! He can hear us._ She enters the kitchen and asks if he’s about to get in the bed.

“Yeah,” Kageyama replies. “I had a long day.”

She steps a little closer to her son and stands on tiptoe to kiss his forehead. “Goodnight, Tobio.”

“Goodnight, Okaasan.” He forces a small smile, conscious of what’s happening in the other room. What’s _been_ happening in the other room every night, now. There isn’t much use in lying to his parents like he hadn’t heard anything, but he knows that it’s the only thing that’s going to keep them from worrying. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep anybody from worrying.

He would go back to bed and his mother would sit back down on the couch next to his father. Their conversation would start smoothly like it always does. Their conversation would hit bumps like it always does. And one of them would be crying at the end.

It’s the weight—Kageyama thinks—of having something wrong with your kid. It’s doctor bills and medicine and worrying that something is going to go wrong someday and when the bills disappear you might feel relieved.

Kageyama lays down on his bed and listens to the noises of their argument. He inhales, exhales, slowly, evenly.

* * *

 When the voices start he thinks it’s just his parents again. They sound distant, and as soon as they make themselves heard, Kageyama can’t hold onto the words. They’ve been said but he isn’t sure what they mean. It’s just soft enough not to understand, but just loud enough for him to recognize that it’s spoken in his own language.

For a little while he lets his parents yell at each other but as time passes he grows more concerned. Usually they burn out after ten, maybe fifteen minutes. It’s the same old song: Otousan complains about how much work he’s been doing lately and Okaasan tells him that if he weren’t working there would be no way to pay for anything and it’s not like it’s easier sitting here making sure Tobio doesn’t—There’s a list of things following the “doesn’t” in most cases.

Now though, the argument rages on for what feels like hours. Kageyama knows he needs to sleep but it’s too difficult. He tries covering his ears to muffle the noise of his parents, but it’s all in vain. About then is when he decides to get up and check on them.

Kageyama shuffles down the hall to his parents’ room soundlessly, and he notices that the arguing does not grow louder as he draws closer to their door. Once he enters he sees that they’re both asleep in bed, backs to each other. The argument still crowds his mind, neither louder nor softer than before.

“Okaasan?” Kageyama’s voice is quiet as he shakes his mother awake. “Something weird is going on.”

She sits up groggily and asks “Can you make it back to your room?”

“Yes.” They walk back to his bedroom, mother holding onto son by the forearm. She guides him like he needs help getting there, which, for all she knows, he might. For all either of them know, this could be another night spent in the hospital.

By the time Kageyama sits down on the edge of his bed, the voices have subsided some but he notices that something else has taken its place.

That he’s tired must be part of it, but he can feel his hands begin to tremble. He decides not to say anything to his mother until it’s his whole body; his shoulders shake and so do his legs and his fingers. His teeth chatter like he’s stuck in a snowstorm. He nearly bites his tongue twice just trying to talk to his mother—he’s not used to trembling like this. Consciously.

“I think it’s a seizure.” His teeth clack together between syllables.

“Should I get the Diastat?”

“Oh God, Okaasan. Not the Diastat. Please.”

“Yes, the Diastat. Talk to me while I go get it.” She kisses his cheek.

“Fine.” Kageyama’s mother disappears from the room, and he talks to her about nonsense as he lays down on the bed, his chest flat against the sheets, his cheek pressed against the pillow, eyes facing the door so he knows when she returns with the fat syringe in her hand. He doesn’t have the heart to take care of his shorts just yet.

* * *

 Kageyama swings his legs back and forth while he sits on the examination table. His mother explains the events that prompted this neurologist appointment—he was scheduled for a checkup in less than two weeks but with recent developments it had to be moved forward. He isn’t really paying attention until the doctor speaks up: “This is pretty normal. We can put him on extra medication that should control this nicely. Clonic seizures aren’t as difficult to deal with as tonic-clonics and with medication they shouldn’t interfere with any of his usual activities. Are you still playing volleyball?”

“Yes,” Kageyama lies. “It’s useless to quit something you’re good at just because a little medical trouble gets in your way.” He feels like a tool just saying that, but he feels something well up in his chest when his mother smiles.

“Know when to pull away,” the neurologist warns, her voice low. “It’s useless to get hurt and ruin something you’re good at.”

“And I know what I’m doing.”

“As long as you’re safe, there’s no reason for you to quit just yet. I’ll fill out your prescription, yeah?”

* * *

 The clonazepam for Kageyama’s clonic seizures calms him down, keeps him for getting worked up, keeps him from wanting to stay up all night. He pays more attention to what’s going on with his family and Kageyama isn’t even mad at himself when he doesn’t react at all after his father tells him that he’ll be getting his own apartment for a little while.

He basks in the way he feels when he gets texts and snapchats from Hinata that are filled with details about the current state of Karasuno’s volleyball team. Maybe it’s the fact that Hinata cares about keeping Kageyama involved with the team. Maybe it’s the fact that Hinata _himself_ wants to talk to Kageyama still. Either way, Kageyama smiles every time he feels his phone buzz in his pocket.

* * *

 One day on the way home from school it’s as if Hinata can sense something different with Kageyama. Something new lingers in the air around him, replacing the usual gloomy atmosphere. He smiles more and he allows his hand to brush Hinata’s every now and again.

Hinata is not about to take advantage of such a good day. He breathes the sweet air Kageyama is giving off now, smile widening as he inhales. It’s then he says “Natsu is having a slumber party this weekend, and my mom thinks it would be weird if I was there. Would your parents mind having me over on Saturday night?”

“Oh,” Kageyama says, caught off-guard. “I mean, I guess it’s not a big deal. We can ask when we get to my house and you can know the answer right then. You know _I_ don’t mind having you over but sometimes Okaasan gets temperamental.”

Hinata has a quip on the tip of his tongue but he decides to keep it to himself for now. “It’s fine if I can’t stay,” he says. “I think somebody else could have me over in a pinch, but I’ve been hoping to hang out with you lately.”

Kageyama feels blush rising in his cheeks. “What?”

“Well it’s not like you’re on the volleyball team anymore, dumbass.” Hinata is laughing at Kageyama’s red face now “and all you do when we’re practicing is watch us play through the gym windows. You know, I think Coach would let you come inside if you really wanted.”

Kageyama only shakes his head and they keep walking down the road, in silence once more. He notices that Hinata is smiling and he soon finds himself smiling too. If his mother said no to Saturday, he isn’t sure what he would do. Then again, he isn’t sure what he would do if his mother said yes.

The thought of any kind of response clings to Kageyama’s back, but he doesn’t let Hinata see it weigh him down. Together, they admire the streets at dusk. They stand shoulder to shoulder—or shoulder to elbow. He’s so little, even now. He’s so little, that when they stand in the doorway together, he can fit beside Kageyama easily. When Kageyama’s mother sees them like that, side by side, an inch or so left on either end, she smiles.

“It’s been too long since I’ve seen you two together.” She takes a step closer to the boys so she can ruffle Hinata’s hair. “What are you doing here?”

“My little sister is having a few friends over this weekend,” Hinata says “and I was wondering if I could spend the night here.”

“Of course.” She places a hand on Hinata’s cheek, and Kageyama can’t figure out if it’s the confirmation or the motherly touch that makes Hinata smile like that. “You’re always welcome here.”

* * *

 All day Saturday, Kageyama had felt a tug in his gut whenever he thought about Hinata coming to stay the night, but now that he was actually at Kageyama’s house it all felt a little anticlimactic. This is no different than any other time Hinata had come over, maybe except for the fact that Kageyama is so nervous. Had he always been this nervous around Hinata, or is this just another side effect that crushes seem to have?

Hinata lays flat on Kageyama’s bed, throwing a volleyball at the wall over and over again to have it bounce back into his hands. Kageyama sits at his desk chair and tries not to be distracted by this—by the muscles in Hinata’s arms moving underneath his skin. He almost doesn’t notice when Hinata says “I think you could come back to volleyball any time.”

“Yeah? I don’t think so,” Kageyama scoffs, reaction slightly delayed.

“No, I’m serious,” Hinata puts the volleyball aside and sits up straight. “Whatever this is, like, bothering you and stuff, it’s not going to get the best of you. I mean, it hasn’t already.”

“Well, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Then why don’t you tell me? You’re my friend. You’re my _best friend_.”

“Because it’s complicated, you dumbass!” Kageyama stands and moves away from his previous place at the desk, determined to put space between himself and Hinata. The distance doesn’t shake Hinata; he only gets up from the bed and follows Kageyama. “It’s not something I talk about. Ever. Okay?” Kageyama’s voice goes quiet.

“Okay,” Hinata licks his lips. “Yeah, okay.” After that, Kageyama allows his mind to wander again, to think about his friend’s lips even though it hurts him to do so. Dim lamplight illuminates half of Hinata’s face, his hair turning to soft orange flames. _I wonder what would happen if I kissed him right now._ Kageyama stops himself before he goes any further. _Oh, you’re such a dumbass. He’d probably just walk out._ But he lingers and finds himself watching the way Hinata’s face moves with expression, all wild eyes, quick lips, and thin eyebrows that move so much they must be alive.

He isn’t paying attention when Hinata pulls him into a kiss.

* * *

 The first time they kissed, it was sloppy. Hinata misjudged the distance a little bit and only the right half of Kageyama’s lips touched his. Their teeth collided, and there didn’t seem enough room for their noses pressed, uncompromising, into each other’s cheeks.

And then a gap, filled with Kageyama’s confused words “Did you just kiss me?”

It’s Hinata’s voice now, sound and sure “Of course I did. I _like_ you.”

Relief spreads across Kageyama’s face as he whispers “Oh, thank God. I like you too.”

Then they’re kissing again, a little more calculated this time around. Kageyama closed the gap for this one, leaning down instead of forcing Hinata to stand on his tiptoes. He lets one hand rest on the back of Hinata’s head, fingers laced in his downy hair, the other on Hinata’s waist. All he thinks about is the way his lips feel against Hinata’s—soft and warm and happy. His lips curl into a smile that Hinata returns and after a while they’re nearly laughing into each other’s mouths.

Briefly, Hinata pulls away and Kageyama can hear his laughter more clearly—the sound of a bell. Hinata places his hands on Kageyama’s head, thumbs cradling his ears, and then they lean back in to kiss again. It’s hard to think about anything but what’s going on with Hinata’s hands, twisting and lacing in Kageyama’s hair, slowly moving his head back against the bedroom wall. They’re cut short by a knock at the door and a mother’s cautious words.

“Tobio? I’m going to bed in a few minutes. Don’t forget to take your medicine.”

Hinata takes a step back in surprise. “Yes, Okaasan.”

“Oh, and I know that Hinata is staying the night, but be careful staying up late, yeah?”

“Yeah, Okaasan.”

“Goodnight, Tobio. I love you.” Kageyama can’t tell if it’s the door that strains her voice.

“I love you too.” He waits until he’s sure his mother has walked away before he moves back over to where Hinata is standing. It’s hard to pick up where they left off—where had is hands gone before? Had his heart been beating so quickly earlier, or was this just another nervous side effect of liking somebody? Kageyama kisses Hinata’s forehead, but before he can progress, Hinata is pushing him back. He asks “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing—just—your mom wants you to take your medicine.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that in a few minutes. No big deal.” Kageyama leans toward Hinata again.

“ _Kageyama_ ,” Hinata pushes him back once more and meets his eyes. “Please—just—do it now, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama sighs. “Yeah, okay. It’s just a minute. You can stay here if you want.” He pushes his way out the door and smooths his hair a little in case his mother is still up. All the lights have been put out except for the kitchen light, which shines like a beacon at the end of the hallway. Hinata follows at Kageyama’s heels, but he tries not to notice and thinks only about the small chore ahead of him.

The bottles are kept next to the sink, right below the cabinet where his mother keeps glasses and mugs. Kageyama slides the larger of two bottles toward himself with one hand while the other reaches up to open the cabinet and grab a small plastic cup. He tells Hinata to fill it for him while he draws the medicine, the first time Kageyama has acknowledged him since they left the bedroom.  A syringe lays on the counter in two pieces, and Kageyama puts it together with expert ease. Although he had only been on Trileptal for a few months, drawing the liquid from the bottle was nearly muscle memory, ten milliliters to fill the syringe, then a gentle stream of creamy, bitter medication into his mouth, a swallow of water as he draws the remaining four milliliters, taking it the same way he does the first ten. Hinata watches intently as Kageyama holds the bottle upside-down to get the liquid out and then taps the syringe a few times to shake the bubbles free and check the exact measurement of the dose. After that he tells Hinata to wash the syringe out as he takes a little yellow pill.

They go back to Kageyama’s room as quietly as they had left, Kageyama barely noticing that Hinata is right behind him. Once they have both crossed the threshold, Kageyama closes the door behind them. As it clicks, he whispers “I’m sorry” barely louder than the shutting door.

“What? No, no, don’t be sorry.” Hinata grabs Kageyama’s hands. “It’s _not_ a big deal.” He leads Kageyama to the bed and they sit down together. Hinata’s thumbs rub the backs of Kageyama’s hands.

“But it _is_ a big deal.” Kageyama can feel his palms begin to sweat and he pulls away from Hinata for just a moment to wipe them on his pants. “I’m on two types of medication and they’re thinking of putting me on a third kind and it’s a big deal because nobody understands anything that’s going on with me right now.”

“Hush, it’s fine. It’s okay.”

“No, _no_ , it isn’t.” Kageyama’s voice is shaking now. “I don’t talk about this _ever_.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I do. I’m going to.”

“Hey—“

“Hinata, you have to listen to me. You need to know this. And it’s not that serious but,” he places a clammy hand on Hinata’s knee “I’m epileptic.” Hinata doesn’t reply so Kageyama goes on “It means I have seizures a lot.”

“I know what epilepsy is, dumbass. What I don’t understand is—“

“What you don’t understand is how it keeps me from playing volleyball?” Kageyama finishes the question for Hinata, who nods. “Because something could happen in the middle of a game and in a split second I could go from tossing a ball to having a seizure. And what if you—or somebody else—fell on me? I don’t want—it’s not that I’m worried about getting hurt, I guess.”

“You don’t want anybody to get scared?”

“Exactly,” Kageyama sighs. “Because it _is_ scary, okay? Take my word for it on that one, Hinata. You’re not going to see me have a seizure and I don’t want you to.” He takes Hinata’s face in his hands and looks at him for a moment. He notices faint cinnamon-colored freckles on the bridge of his nose and long eyelashes that frame his wide eyes. “You don’t need to see anything scary like that, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Hinata wraps himself around Kageyama’s torso. “I want you to be safe.”

“Me too.” They lean in for another long, slow kiss. Kageyama lets his hands fall to Hinata’s shoulders, and then his lower back. In comparison, Hinata moves his hands up so that they hold Kageyama’s face, thumbs lazily moving back and forth across Kageyama’s cheekbones. Neither pull back for more than breathing until Hinata leans away just long enough to ask “Do you want yourself to be safe, or do you want me to be safe?” before moving in to kiss Kageyama again.

“Both,” Kageyama exhales, not bothering to lean back farther than a few centimeters. Just then Hinata grabs Kageyama by the shirt collar and pulls him so that they’re lying next to each other on the bed, still kissing, foreheads touching. They lay like that for a while, until they grow too tired to move their lips anymore.

* * *

 When he wakes up, he’s careful not to move Hinata. His hair is bright against the pillow, doused in the rosy, golden light of morning. Kageyama finds himself smiling as he edges around Hinata and crawls out of bed, setting his bare feet on the cold floor. He pulls the sheets up to Hinata’s chin so they form a cocoon around his small body.

The floorboards creak under Kageyama’s feet as he walks to the bathroom. Part of him is conscious about the fact that this noise will wake his mother up. She had always been a light sleeper and his epilepsy only encourages it now. _Let her wake up, honestly,_ he thinks _because what is she even going to walk in on? I’m not doing anything now._

He flicks the bathroom lights on and shuts the door behind him.  The wide mirror catches his eye and he allows himself to stop in front of it for a little while. His hands trail over his lips, where Hinata had kissed him so many times the night before. Even now they feel a little different—pressed upon—he isn’t sure he can find the words but he knows his lips aren’t like they were this time the day before.

Maybe he’s being too sentimental.

For a few minutes, he stands in front of the mirror and looks at his reflection, trying to see what Hinata does. Have his cheekbones always been so high? Have his eyes always been that shade of blue-grey? He lifts his hair out of his face to get a better look at his forehead.

It’s right then he begins to feel the aura climb up his spine. Kageyama rapidly presses both hands to the bathroom counter so he can get his bearings, so he can steady himself in a room that spins around him. His tongue feels fat and heavy in his mouth, already coated in that thick metallic taste, and he only barely manages to call for his mother. After that he pushes his way out of the bathroom and into the hallway, nearly running into the wall but sticking his arms out just in time to stop himself.

Right before his vision blurs to black and the seizure takes him, he can see Hinata, perched in the bedroom doorway, mouth at the precipice of a shout. There’s no time left for Kageyama to hear it—the buzzing aura and the numb spell already pulled him down into wracking tremors.

* * *

 The next two minutes are frenzied. There’s one last noise from Kageyama before his back arches up and he’s shaking and convulsing in the middle of the hallway. Hinata can’t find it in himself to move when Kageyama’s mother comes sliding down the hallway, carried by her socks and the momentum of her fear. She’s speaking to Hinata, shouting at him, commanding him to grab the phone and hover over the emergency button in case it gets bad— _you mean this isn’t bad already_ —and get the Diastat— _whatever that is_. He takes her orders as a signal that it’s okay to react to what’s unfolding in front of him. But he isn’t really assessing the situation. He’s just doing what she says.

He feels like he can’t even look at Kageyama for the two minutes or however long he timed the seizure on his digital watch—he’s too afraid. Hinata no longer wonders why Kageyama said he didn’t want him to be there when one happened. He’s no longer wishing that he understood why Kageyama left the team. Instead he focuses on the voice of his best friend’s mother as she holds him on his side: “You’re a good boy. You’re so brave. You’re safe. I’m here. You’re a good boy. You’re so brave.” After the seizure ends, she tells Hinata to hold Kageyama like he is until he regains consciousness while she calls for an ambulance.

Hinata obliges. He’s calculated with his movements, keeping Kageyama in the best shape position for breathing. It’s air he needs most—his mother explains between snippets of conversation with an operator on the other end of the phone. _My son is epileptic and he’s just had a seizure—we don’t have a car anymore and I need somebody to come and see if he’s okay—Hinata, is he breathing?_ There’s no rhyme or reason to what she tells the operator, it seems. Hinata knows that neither he nor she are good in a crisis. He knows what Kageyama had meant last night. He wishes he didn’t.

Kageyama needs time to reboot like a computer. He’s overworked and he’ll be tired long after the seizure and the post-ictal state have passed. His lips lost much of their color—he’s out of air, taking it in now in slow, shallow breaths that Hinata wouldn’t know about if he didn’t check for breathing every thirty or so seconds. When they had fallen asleep in Kageyama’s bed last night, it was at once. He didn’t get to see the way Kageyama’s dark eyelashes fell against his pale face. He didn’t get to see the cowlick on the back of Kageyama’s head, the pale blue veins that flash like lightning over his porcelain skin. He wonders if doing this makes him a bad person: thinking about how beautiful Kageyama is during a medical emergency like this.

It’s then he begins to wonder where Kageyama is and if he’ll come back from wherever the seizure has taken him.

The EMTs are just coming in when Kageyama’s eyes flutter open, when he begins to run his tongue across his teeth so he can taste the blood in his mouth a little better. Part of him knows what had just happened but he still asks. He still asks them if he’s okay. They tell him that he’s going to be fine as they lift him onto a gurney. They speak to his mother quietly as he’s wheeled out and onto the ambulance. Hinata follows close behind, listening, trying to understand.

* * *

 Most of the time Kageyama spends in the hospital that day is filled with half-lidded stares at the black and white ceiling tiles. The doctors allow Hinata to sit in the antiseptic hospital room with Kageyama and his mother, and nobody says much of anything while people run tests to check for overall stability. Hinata texts his mother to explain what’s going on and that he’ll call her when he’s ready to come home but for now he wants to stay at Kageyama’s side.

After a while, Kageyama’s mother decides that it’s time for lunch and that she’ll be right back but _ring the call bell if you need a nurse_ and it’s less that she’s hungry but more that she’s restless and tired of waiting for test results.

“Your mom looks old,” Hinata whispers just as soon as Kageyama’s mother leaves the room.

“Hinata, please,” Kageyama says. “Don’t.”

“I haven’t even seen your dad yet. Is he _working_ again?” The word “working” has an angry bite to it.

“Please. This isn’t the time, okay? We don’t need to talk about that here.”

“I won’t talk about it, then.” For a moment they listen to only the beeping of Kageyama’s heart monitor and the hum of the busy hospital outside. Kageyama picks at the fresh bandage over the spot where a nurse drew some blood for testing. “I won’t talk about what happened today or yesterday or anything from the past couple of months if you don’t want to. No matter how much _I_ want to. Especially yesterday.”

“Yesterday was—“

“It was yesterday,” Hinata waves his hand dismissively. “I’m not even going there.”

“Okay,” Kageyama sighs once, long and slow. “Okay, okay. I just want you to know that I meant it all yesterday. There. We dropped it. What do you want from me?”

Hinata thinks about what he’s going to say for a moment. “I want to know if you’ll be okay.” He swallows. “I want you to just _be_ okay.”

“Hinata...”

“I want you to come back to the team and I want to play volleyball with you and I want you to be happy. I want _us_ to be happy.”

“Please…”

“Are you happy?” Hinata grips the armrests of the metal chair that he’s sitting in. They’re cold, and he holds them tightly to warm them up so he doesn’t feel uncomfortable holding them, waiting for an answer.

Because Kageyama isn’t answering. He’s just wringing his hands into the white quilt that lays across his hospital bed. He feels his eyes begin to water and he squeezes them shut to stop them from leaking. Some part of him wants to tell Hinata every last thing that’s happened over the past few months. But where is there to start?

All Kageyama says is “I’m sorry” before he opens his eyes. Soon after he begins to cry and he squeezes the quilt more tightly. Hinata sits there in stunned silence—it’s not like he had never seen Kageyama upset before. He couldn’t count on one hand how many times he had seen Kageyama upset over something. None of those were like this.

Before, it had been sadness coupled with anger. Kageyama would turn into a fire and Hinata would comfort him by fighting back with everything he had, matching the noise and the range and the hot tears. This carries none of the force. This is sadness coupled with fear. Kageyama is quiet and oh so small as he sobs. He turns his face away from Hinata.

There’s a moment where Hinata doesn’t know what to do. There’s a moment where doctors and nurses pass through the hallway just outside the door in their bright blue and green scrubs that blur into shapes when they jog and Kageyama is sobbing and Hinata is watching both the door and his friend. It’s easier to choose the first option, running away, but in the end he chooses the one who needs him.

Sitting down on the edge of the hospital bed, he shushes Kageyama. Hinata crawls closer to him and wraps his arms around the other boy’s body. Kageyama takes a deep, shaky breath and leans into Hinata, who tells him it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to be afraid and to cry.

“It’s going to be like this for as long as you want it to be. Just the two of us,” Hinata says, smoothing Kageyama’s hair with his hands.

“The three of us,” Kageyama corrects. “We have an unwanted guest.”

“Your mother?”

“Not my mother,” Kageyama closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I love my mother. We know her too well for her to be unwanted.”

And Hinata finally understands.

* * *

The clusters come and go, so do the doctors, and Kageyama’s awkward dinners at his father’s new apartment. He still wakes up in the middle of the night and hears his parents arguing, and now he knows that it’s not only an impossibility but an aura and he should get up and climb in bed with his mother so he can be with her when the clonic seizure starts. He still lives on a beach made of fear and his epilepsy is the tide crashing against the shore.

But he finds solace in the little things: the big card that sits on his nightstand, full of pen scribbles and we miss yous; the texts asking if he remembered to take his medicine, followed by “goodnight” and a heart emoji; the way his hands cup a volleyball like they always have, reminding him that sometimes things just don’t change.

Somebody calls his name—a first year—he thinks—and he’s taken back to his surroundings. Sneakers squeak on the freshly polished floor. Bright overhead lights illuminate the gym and the group of boys in their penny jerseys and Kageyama finds himself searching for a familiar face on his side of the net. Hinata winks, and Kageyama throws the ball up into the air, takes a running start, feels the sweet sting of it against his palm before it sails through the air and across the court.

Somebody cheers as it hits the floor on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> It's definitely worth mentioning that this fic comes from a super personal place. I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was 3, and I am 16 now. Today, I'm in a period of remission, which is definitely awesome, and I feel really lucky about. This story is easily the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written, having drawn so much of this fic from my own experiences with epilepsy.
> 
> When I was a kid, I never talked about being epileptic out of fear. I was scared of it, and so were a lot of the people around me. Now I'm a lot more confident in sharing my past experiences, and spending the better part of a month composing this fic was a huge confidence-booster.
> 
> Really, the main reason I wrote this was to spread epilepsy awareness. I didn't meet another person with epilepsy until I was 15, which to me is really shocking. Considering that epilepsy is so common, I think that has a lot to do with the fact that not many people like talking about it. To me, it's not something that needs to be stigmatized like that.
> 
> I know I'm getting rambly here, but thank you for hearing me out and for your continued support for this fic! Epilepsy awareness day is March 26th, and I highly encourage all of you to participate, even if it's just wearing purple or doing some online research. If you want to talk about the fic, epilepsy, or if you just wanna drop in and say "hi!!" my tumblr is @freshhotyaois


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